DIY Wood Bead Christmas Garland
Equipment
- Scissors
- glass bowls
- metal spoon
Ingredients
- wood beads in three sizes: 3/4" (20mm), the medium size is 1 1/8" (30mm), the largest are 1.5" (40mm)
- wood skewers
- cups or other objects to use as s drying aid (see direction no. 1)
- white acrylic paint or color of your choice
- thread to string the beads for dying
- RIT red dye or color of choice
- rubber gloves
- leather string
- paper towels handy for the dyeing part
Instructions
For Painted Beads:
- Choose the beads you want to paint. I choose to only plaint the really large ones. Use your white acrylic paint and paint your simple designs onto the beads. Thread the beads onto skewers and suspend them on cups or other objects to dry easily.
To Dye Beads Red:
- String all your wood beads onto a string. It really can be any kind of string, in my situation I used twine. This baked the dying portion easy because all the beads in one bath get dipped more consistently.
- Get ready to dye: Line your work surface with plastic or several sheets of newspaper or paper towels, have a few paper towels laid out nearby to wipe up any spills and/or blot your gloved hands before you touch things. Put on your gloves. To mix, I used 2 overflowing tbsp of dye to about 3 cups of HOT water. You can either microwave, covered with plastic wrap, for a couple minutes (check after 1 min) or use a tea kettle and measure out with a glass measuring cup. Stir thoroughly with a metal spoon.
- Take the beaded string and submerge it in the dye, hold under and agitate gently. Take it out and let the excess dye drip back into the bowl.
- Rinse the beaded string thoroughly in a sink under cold running water.
- Hang to dry for a couple of hours. You don’t want to beads to be wet or they will rub off coloring onto the leather.
Make Garland
- String your painted beads and dyed beads in a random order onto your leather string. Once you have string everything, watch this very helpful tutorial very carefully and learn how to tie a perfect loop knot.
- Hang and enjoy your super cute Christmas garland. YAY!
Notes
For dyeing:
I recommend you dye a test bead first to see if your mixture is how you want it. If it’s too dark, add more water. If it’s too light, add more dye. The wood will appear slightly lighter when dry. Generally, the longer you leave it in, the more saturated it will be.
I recommend you dye a test bead first to see if your mixture is how you want it. If it’s too dark, add more water. If it’s too light, add more dye. The wood will appear slightly lighter when dry. Generally, the longer you leave it in, the more saturated it will be.